1. In our afflictions. Affliction is part of the
provision that God hath made in his house for his children,
Heb. xii. 5, 6. The great variety of
its causes, means, uses, and effects, is generally known. There is a
measure of them appointed for every one. To be wholly without them is a
temptation; and so in some measure an affliction. That which I am to speak
unto is, that in all our afflictions we need the consolations of the Holy
Ghost. It is the nature of man to relieve himself, when he is entangled,
by all ways and means. According as men’s natural spirits are, so do they
manage themselves under pressures. “The spirit of a man will bear his
infirmity;” at least, will struggle with it.